Masters Men at Boston: Cabada Holds Off a Late Charge in a Deep Field

• Fernando Cabada (CO) wins the Masters Men race in 2:23:01 (5:27/mi), edging Anthony Bruns by 38 seconds and Prescott Leach by 43.
• The top three are separated by just 43 seconds across 26.2 miles — but Cabada ran the stronger second half while Bruns and Leach were catching up late.
• Mustafa Mohamed ran the 22nd-fastest 5K→10K split among the women's field and held 29th place through the early miles, but faded from 34th to 69th in the women's standings across the back half — a classic fast-start, hard-finish story.
• 9,891 Masters Men finished in Boston's 128th running — one of the deepest masters fields in a World Marathon Major.

Fernando Cabada came to Hopkinton with legitimate speed and showed it from the gun. Running at 5:27/mi through the cold, drizzly Patriots' Day conditions — 49°F, a 10 mph wind, and 90% humidity — he held a position in the low-30s among the women's field through the first half, a useful marker of just how aggressively he was moving. He crested Newton Hills and Heartbreak Hill with enough left to hold his lead, finishing in 2:23:01 and winning the Masters Men race outright.

Anthony Bruns (2:23:39) and Prescott Leach (2:23:44) made it a genuine contest. Both Bruns and Leach posted the 34th- and 37th-fastest Half→25K splits among the women's field, respectively — meaning they were running that stretch faster than Cabada relative to the broader race. They clawed back time, but not quite enough: Bruns crossed 38 seconds back, Leach five seconds further still. The finish times were close; the efforts in the back half were a genuine catch-up that fell just short.

Mustafa Mohamed had the most dramatic arc of the top five. He sat 29th in the women's standings through 10K — posting the 22nd-fastest 5K→10K split among the women — but by the finish he had drifted back to 69th in that same reference field. His 2:26:03 still earned him 4th in the Masters Men race, just four seconds ahead of New York's Chip O'Hara (2:26:07), who himself had surged through the 10K→15K segment before steadying.

Behind the top five, the depth of this field is striking. David Cisewski (6th, 2:26:51) through Peter Bromka (10th, 2:28:30) are separated by just 39 seconds — a full minute and a half behind the winner, but running sub-5:41 pace across a point-to-point course from Hopkinton to Copley Square. In a masters field of 9,891, finishing in the top 20 at Boston demands something special, and every name on this list earned it with the numbers to prove it.